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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29589813">Martyr Complex</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/genau/pseuds/genau'>genau</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Undertale (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Friendship, Gender-Neutral Chara (Undertale), Gender-Neutral Frisk (Undertale), Gender-neutral Reader, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Other, Reader Becomes An Unwilling Parental Figure, Reader Cannot SAVE or RESET, Reader Is Not Chara (Undertale), Reader Is Not Frisk (Undertale), Reader Remembers Resets (Undertale), Sans (Undertale) Remembers Resets, Selectively Mute Frisk (Undertale), Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Trauma, Undertale Pacifist Route, eventually, me finding...something in fanfic form, time loops</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:00:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,653</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29589813</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/genau/pseuds/genau</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mysterious disappearances, unexplained deaths; no-one hikes up Ebott without something morbid in mind. Sure, there'd been some unexpected events that stopped you from fully following through, but you'd been given an opportunity to set things back in motion in spectacular fashion. The one thing you'd counted on, though, was being able to actually die.</p><p>(or, death isn't so permanent for you when there's this kid in the mix, and maybe you should reconsider what you thought were your only options)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Burgerpants (Undertale) &amp; Reader, Frisk &amp; Sans (Undertale), Frisk (Undertale) &amp; Everyone, Frisk (Undertale) &amp; Reader, Reader &amp; Everyone, Sans (Undertale) &amp; Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Martyr Complex</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>see end notes for warnings</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The evening sky is dulling over the vast expanse of the mountain range, once vibrant yellows and oranges that dyed the whole atmosphere trickling down into subtler pinks and cooler hues. You sit there on a boulder near the edge of the cliff overlooking the entirety of the forest below, marveling at how far you’ve hiked up. Just a bit farther now, and you’d be at the apex– you’ll come back down here when you’d finished up there. Vaguely, you remind yourself that the flashlight you took with you is in the left pocket of the tan bag (currently draped over your shoulders) should you need it. </p><p>Your hike upwards had been an ordeal, if a pleasant one. Forest scenery had quickly given way to more arid conditions as you’d made your way to the edge of the path, eventually having to make your own with the knife you brought along just for that purpose. The change overtime from the lush array of pines and fall birch had been subtle, and you hadn’t even noticed it until you were in the thick of an area crisp with wind and clad only with scraggly undergrowth, bushes, and dirt for kilometers around. You had found a couple boulders to sit on, taking time to rest and kick at the small pebbles before continuing your trek. Even though you’d surveyed the mountain beforehand, the hike took far longer than you thought it would. You had ran out of water halfway through and ate your last granola bar an hour ago.</p><p>You hadn’t been wrong about one thing at least. The scenery is lovely, and the mountain is peaceful– it’s a wonderful place to die.</p><p>Getting up from your sitting position, you make your move to continue onwards. The wind swirls around you and you note the slight chill that runs through your thick black turtleneck. You’ll make your stop up at the top quick, then come back. Simple. You move quickly, but it seems to be getting darker much faster than it should be. Cool tones overtake the sky, dying it a subtle shade of grey blue. Any darker, and you’d need that flashlight. With this in mind, you begin to walk even faster.</p><p>By the time you’ve reached the top and fought through any brush standing in your way with the help of your flashlight, you make a guess around a half hour has passed. You find yourself in a clearing. From what you can see illuminated in the dim, yellowed berth of your flashlight, it’s overgrown with weeds and flowers circling an opening in the middle– a sharp contrast to the barren conditions from earlier. Strange. You venture closer towards the edge, tilting your flashlight up. In a split second, you freeze. There’s a kid there.</p><p>They’re balancing right over the opening on the opposite side. Seemingly having spaced out, their dark eyes and tan skin are illuminated by the flashlight for a moment before they make startled eye-contact with you, jumping violently.</p><p>You call out to them.</p><p>With a strangled gasp, they pitch forward into the opening just as you forget yourself and jolt forward to catch them. It takes a sickening drop of your foot to realize that there is no ground in between the two of you. You are tumbling face first towards nothing in utter silence, losing your grip on your flashlight in the process. Bitterly, you think that at least the cliff had a nicer place below to find your body. You probably won’t be found here at all. That explains the 'mysterious' disappearances that brought you here in the first place. You're just another one of them.</p><p>Briefly, you wonder about the kid. But then you can’t wonder any more at all.</p><hr/><p>When you wake, there is warm sunlight on your face illuminating the backs of your eyelids. The faint waft of sweet pollen and loamy dirt drifts to your nostrils. A sharp pain captures up your stomach, twisting your insides against you. In your mouth is the pungent taste of metal. Your eyes open as your head falls to the side. A thick flush of flowers greets you, a sickening yellow as if to mock you with their own cheerfulness. They look well tended to. You wonder about the gardener, remember you’re alive, and wonder why you couldn’t have died.</p><p>You’ll just try again later. Maybe less dramatically.</p><p>A more pressing matter is the head of the child from earlier draped across your midsection. Their body laid across yours, still unconscious, gives you pause to your situation. You take a second further to examine them, glancing down at them without moving your neck to take in their freckled face and thinning sweater. When you try to move yourself, you feel nauseous at the swirl of pain that radiates through your neck and stomach. You take in a sharp, shallow breath that smarts against something in your mouth. The child stirs on top of you once, twice, and yet again. You have to give it your all not to say a not-so-very-child-friendly-one-syllable and startle them. They open their eyes and jolt anyway. Jumpy kid. You were the same. Are the same.</p><p>They bolt straight up to their feet, a tussle of black hair and apparent anxiety. It turns out it’s not just apparent, but palpable when you see their expression as they turn to face you. Well, you know exactly how to alleviate this.</p><p>"Hiya," you rasp, blood leaking out the corners of your lips.</p><p>'<em>Nice expression you’ve got there</em>,' you think with a bitter amusement.</p><p>Despite your appearance and their apparent turmoil over using a bleeding adult as a convenient shock absorber, the kid seems willing to help you onto your feet. You immediately turn away from them and gingerly press down against your stomach to feel for any hardness, checking for internal bleeding. There only seems to be some nasty bruising. A swipe of your tongue across your cheek confirms it; you’d only managed to bite a substantial chunk out of yourself. Disgusting. Turning back, you are faced with a very concerned looking child, barely able to be called mid-sized, holding out your tan bag and a very broken flashlight back to you. You stare.</p><p>"Ah," you mumble, "thanks."</p><p>The two of you stand together for a moment more while you fumble with your bag, checking for your pocketknife, your phone, your pills. Concerned Child looks at you. You stare, dazed, back. The silence weighs on you, and you remember that you’re the Currently Alive Adult here. You should be doing. Something.</p><p>"What’s your name, kid?" you slur, averting your eyes to slide the broken flashlight into the left-side pocket. When they don’t answer, you look over at them. They start moving their hands to– to sign something? You are filled with a creeping embarrassment that you cannot understand a single one of the words (letters??) that the kid is trying to convey to you. You shake your head down at them, cheek radiating warmth and paining (physically, you have the emotional part mapped out) each of the next words you speak.</p><p>"Sorry, squirt," you wince out, "and I don’t have a notepad…"</p><p>They shrug and point at you instead. It seems like they’re asking for your name? You tell them.</p><p>With that out of the way, you finally take in the fullness of your surroundings and you are directly faced with the full weight of your situation. The hole above you stretches further than you thought it could, illuminating the flower patch faintly. The cavern holds nothing else other than a long corridor, lengthening out into darkness. The fact that you have fallen perhaps a good seven stories and not died does not escape you. But yet again you find yourself focused on the small child accompanying you. People don’t go to Ebott without a death wish, or at least not without a fascination for the morbid rumors– both brought you here, after all. Where were this kid’s parents? How did they make it up here alone? Why were they standing over the edge? You take in their appearance one last time. Small for their age, pretty short– the used bandage on their wrist looks like it should have been changed a long time ago. Their shorts are well-worn, and the jean of the fabric on one side looks like it’s going to fray. The other side is fraying. There’s a bruise on their hand and thick dirt under their fingernails, hair frizzy and rough either from a lack of brushing or from the fall. There’s a thick knot building in your stomach under the bruising, a tell-tale sign that you should do something.</p><p>You’ll put a pin in it. Not your place to comment on anything right now when you can deal with it later. Anyway, the kid looks like they want to head down the spooky corridor now, anxiously shifting from side to side and looking down it. Someone’s got to watch them. Maybe hold their hand, from how it looks like they’re offering it to you. You’re a responsible human being, you're here together, and you reach back out to them.</p><p>The two of you stumble forward into the darkness. Your bag clacks at your side, painfully straining against the hand you have clutched against your abdomen. The child holds your other hand tightly in their grip, more so leading you than you leading them. Footsteps echo along the walls, but as you reach a doorway there’s a scuffle of leaves far back. You turn around with a drop of your stomach, your hand jerking as your small companion halts. Your eyes, pupils blown wide, peer behind you, straining to see anything.</p><p>Nothing, huh? Somehow you don’t believe that.</p><p>Your stomach knots again painfully, but…</p><p>"Sorry," you say instead, dragging your eyes away from behind. You start again, moving across the threshold.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>specific warnings for this chapter: suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts, implied child abuse</p><p>welcome, all, and thank you for reading. i haven't written fanfiction for a long time, so this chapter is mostly just here to test the waters. i probably still write like i'm still 13 and on ff.net lmao<br/>this project is probably just going to be a cathartic process for me that i post for others to see. it's pretty self-indulgent so thanks for sticking around. i can't guarantee that i'll finish this work- but i will try. next chapter coming...at some point, maybe.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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